A measure privatizing or creating public-private partnerships to handle wastewater projects is Mayor Mitch Roth’s top priority for the 2022 legislative session that started Wednesday.

Executives for a stalled $10.5 million composting project addressed a County Council panel Tuesday, extolling the virtues of a centralized system, while other island recycling groups pushed for a distributed system of smaller facilities across the island.

With the legislative session kicking off Wednesday, the County Council has been eager to hear about Mayor Mitch Roth’s priorities for Hawaii Island.

The addition of a new Big Island seat in the state House has set up a battle about whether it should go to East Hawaii or West Hawaii.

Investigating errors and possible fraud in the state’s voter registration database is the responsibility of the county elections clerks and not the state, Chief Elections Officer Scott Nago told the state Elections Commission on Wednesday.

Property owners along a private road off Alii Drive are embroiled in litigation over a gate some owners are building to try to make the area safer at night.

For years, Hele-On bus drivers taking the cross-island trek to deliver passengers to Waikoloa resorts have had to wait in their buses for up to seven hours before making the return trip.

The Big Island will gain an eighth seat this year in the state House of Representatives at the expense of Oahu, following an 8-0 vote Thursday by the state Reapportionment Commission.

After being named Monday the fourth Mass Transit administrator in as many years, John Andoh on Tuesday won a County Council endorsement of his first bill, a measure creating a fare-free Hele-On bus system for the next two years, if not longer.

A new law setting stricter rules for governmental bodies holding remote meetings, including a requirement to provide a physical location for the public to testify, is supposed to go into effect Saturday, but Gov. David Ige has delayed that part of the new law in an emergency proclamation effective through Feb. 28.

After paying their two sewer bills for more than two decades, owners of two contiguous lots on Alii Drive are arguing they should have had to pay only one sewer bill because the structure on one of the lots is an outbuilding, not an unoccupied unit as defined by the county.

After seemingly endless meetings where tiny population clusters were moved block by tedious block, spirited public input and a dozen drafts later, a final map of County Council districts has been approved that will stand for the next 10 years.

First the pandemic lockdown orders and then delays getting permits from a backlogged Department of Public Works have led to a 382-day delay in the county Department of Water Supply being able to transition some of its electrical use to solar power.

Mayor Mitch Roth’s administration was so eager to put a $500,000 American Rescue Plan Act Build Back Better Regional Challenge to good use, it fast-tracked a resolution accepting the money to the County Council before the grant was officially approved by the federal government.

Residents attending public hearings in Kona and Hilo this past week were pretty clear: They didn’t want the Kailua Village business district to be split between County Council districts, nor Waimea, nor Hawaiian Paradise Park, nor the Keaukaha and Panaewa Hawaiian Home Lands property.